The Battered Ballad of Fezzik and Inigo, or If You Rhyme One More Time, I’ll Make You a Mime Each word he heard within his head must rhyme sublime ’fore it was said so ears of peers would hear his tomes— each verse like terse rhapsodic poems— until his still but perplexed friend had cursed his worst to bring an end to what was but a painful trill— as blows a nose which has a chill— yet by and by, though he did try to crop and stop lines flowing by ’til naught a thought but came to mind: to tend his end would be most kind. Dear friend, pretend he wasn’t bad, but that your chat just drove him mad: he heard each word with bated breath— in truth, forsooth, he longed for death— and though we know but wouldn’t blame his urge to purge your very name from thought, which ought to bring relief, your rhymes at times came like a thief to steal the zeal which he would need— conceal his steel, not do the deed— your strength at length came to his heart by vast lambaste of rhymely art.
Ken Gosse generally writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humor in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, Sparks of Calliope and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.
Grand Little Things 